Richard Gingras

Richard Gingras - Commissioner

Richard Gingras is Senior Director of News at Google. In that role he guides Google’s strategies relating to the media ecosystem and oversees many of Google’s news and media-related products. Richard was a key instigator of the recently-announced Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project, an effort to make Web content instantaneous and in doing so, preserve the vitality, utility, and openness of the Worldwide Web. He was also cofounder of the Trust Project, a global effort within the journalism community to insure that high quality journalism is recognized for the credibility it deserves.

For more than thirty-five years, Gingras has led highly-regarded efforts in the development of online services and new media. He also serves on the boards of the First Amendment Coalition, the International Center for Journalists, the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, and the Manship School of Communications at LSU.

From March 2009 to June 2011, he was CEO of Salon Media Group which operated the acclaimed Salon.com and the pioneering virtual community, The Well. Gingras assembled Salon's initial seed financing in 1995.

Gingras was a strategic advisor to the senior team at Google (2007-2009), strategic advisor to Storify (sold do LiveFyre), founder and CEO of Goodmail Systems, a founding VP of pioneering broadband provider @Home Network and SVP and General Manager of Excite@Home (1996-2001), led the design and development of Apple's online service eWorld (1993-1996), and was founder and CEO of MediaWorks (1987-1992), an early developer of news-agenting technology. He is also a strategic advisor and seed funder of numerous startups.

In 1979, Gingras created the first interactive online news magazine done in partnership with CBS, NBC, and PBS using interactive television technology known as broadcast teletext. In the fall of 2012, he was recognized with the Manship Prize for contributions to the evolution of digital media.